Muscles

Hey Muscles, I love you, I want to have your babies. I was supposed to be putting Muscles on in Bristol, but then he sued his record company and now it looks like he won't be coming to Europe. Shame. Now here's a picture of his face:


Why yes Muscles, I would like a chip! Muscles released his first album, Guns Babes Lemonade, back in 2007; it was my favourite album released that year, and Pitchfork gave it 8 out of 10 or something, but for some reason, they didn't bother to include it in their year's top 50. He could have BEEN somebody. And I thought he had a new album due out soon, but that now seems not to be happening (I can't find anything about it, anyway), I'm guessing because of the aforementioned suing of his record company. But that doesn't matter, because I was going to write this blog entry anyway. The other day, y'see, 'One Inch Badge Pin' started going round in my head, and that's one of the songs from his first album, and it made me think "More people should really know about Muscles". So I decided to blog.

Whenever I introduce someone to Muscles, they say "Hey, this is good!" Apart from John. And some other people. Basically, what I'm trying to say is, he divides opinion. And the reason he divides opinion, I imagine, is that he makes cheesy, electro-inflicted dance music. Like Friendly Fires. Except not like Friendly Fires. I don't like Friendly Fires. So I started thinking to myself, "Why is it that, in spite of the fact they're basically doing the same thing, I love Muscles so much, yet I so detest Friendly Fires?" And I think what I concluded was that, while on the face of it Friendly Fires sound like they just want to have fun, there's an undeniable, underlying sense of them taking themselves very, VERY SERIOUSLY, which juxtaposes awkwardly with the music they create.

Muscles doesn't have that. Muscles really does just want to have fun. I mean, there's a sense of sorrow and sentimentality which seeps through sometimes - quite often, really - but for the most part, it's simply invited to join the party, and when it's not... well when it's not, there's no shame in it. That's the thing, I think. There's no pretension of things being better than they are; there's no cynical, contrived attempt to create the impression of joy. Hey, things can be shitty sometimes, but we're going to sing our hearts out and jump around anyway. Second track 'Ice Cream' probably sums it up best, with its choral refrain of "Ice cream is gonna save the day". That's it. Over and over again. "Ice cream is gonna save the day". And if you think it can, then maybe it really will.

Muscles - Ice Cream

MySpace: www.myspace.com/musclesmusic